Amazon are being vilified around the world for not paying taxes in the countries they make profit from. As a multinational company they can move profit around and declare and pay it in the countries with attractive business taxes. I must make it clear that this is NOT illegal but raises moral and ethical questions about the company's policies.In these times of financial difficulties other multinationals have decided to pay their taxes where they generate revenue, as yet Amazon don't. Although Amazon provide some employment in those countries, they are not in particularly significant numbers and rely heavily on the publicly funded mail systems to deliver those purchases. Is this behaviour morallycorrect and do they have a duty to themselves to exploit tax laws for maximum profit as other companies do the same.

I don't think it's so much that Americans are globally unaware or disinterested beyond their borders. I think it's just that the idea of a large corporation putting profits over ethics is viewed as being simply par for the course and hardly a revelation!

Admittedly we're pretty cynical & jaded to such things.

But yes, most Americans agree that Large Corporations, including Amazon, SHOULD be more Socially Conscionable at home AND abroad. They just don't know a way, other than extreme Social Pressure, to force them to do so.

A country's best course of action is probably to enact strict tax laws directed specifically at such corporations, closing tax loopholes and directly affecting their ability to do business in their country and then enforcing those laws stringently.

Amazon has only recently, within the last couple of months, begun collecting and paying California State Sales Tax. So there is *some* progress being made.

The fact is, pretty much any large corporation will take advantage of any legal way to increase profits/competitiveness. The real issue is that economic/taxation laws need to catch up with current technological effects on economic systems! I think it's interesting that so many of the posts have been marked as "not adding to the discussion", when they pretty clearly do!

Amazon is the largest purveyor of music in the world and this is an Amazon thread, stop de-compartmentalising and give us all your wisdom.Is there a "Morality and ethics in commerce thread?" much more apposite than 'politics'

George Harrison, a Musician, once wrote a song called "Taxman" which was subsequently recorded by The Beatles, a Musical Group from England, and included on their 1966 Musical Album, "Revolver" which is currently being sold here on Amazon.

Amazon, a retailer of Musical Products, is also currently being criticized as unethical for not paying its "fair share" of taxes in countries in which it sells its Musical Products, including the Musical Album "Revolver" with its Musical Opening, "Taxman".

Matthew, re: "The real issue is that economic/taxation laws need to catch up with current technological effects on economic systems!"

I say: Be careful what you ask for! Because the people who are responsible for such things USUALLY have a way of making it much more to their own benefit, at the detriment and expense of those whom they are supposed to represent. And it's really gotten bad lately.

I have no faith in these noodniks to do what is right by their constituents. So, I repeat -- be careful what you ask for.